


By Your Side

by vespertineflora



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vespertineflora/pseuds/vespertineflora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Bucky's return, the two men have settled in together and are learning to cope and support each other through their ups and downs--including the nightmares that still plague them both, especially Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Your Side

Steve doesn’t usually rest soundly. Even two years after being defrosted, there are too many a night when he just can’t fall asleep on the soft mattress--he even bought a firmer mattress a couple months ago, and though it helps, he often feels time will be his only true savior.

So it’s late, nearly three in the morning, but Steve isn’t asleep. He lays in bed, comfortable beneath the covers, listening to the soft, peaceful sounds of Bucky sleeping next to him. 

To be fair, Bucky’s return and subsequent settling in his apartment probably has more to do with sleep coming easier than the mattress does (to be particularly fair, the new mattress is because of Bucky anyway, since the old once was a double and the new one is a king). Often, the warmth of Bucky’s body next to him and the gentle rhythmic sound of his breathing is enough most nights to seduce Steve into dreamland.

But it isn’t a foolproof thing, and Steve still occasionally has nights like these, where no creature comfort or home-remedy is quite good enough--and with his damn metabolism, even prescription meds don’t really do the trick. All he can do is lay back and hope sleep comes.

Bucky’s back is to him. He usually sleeps on his side or stomach, claiming that he’s had enough sleeping on his back for a lifetime. Steve’s knuckles are lightly touching a gentle ridge in Bucky’s upper spine. The contact helps ground him, helps keep the bad thoughts out of his head, even if it isn’t enough to put him to sleep.

Or at least he doesn’t think it is, but he’s realizes he’s wrong when the next thing Steve knows he’s jerking awake to the sound of Bucky screaming, the sheets twisted around the both of them, and his heart is racing as he jolts upright, completely awake as he searches around the room for the threat--

And finds nothing. The room is empty except for the two of them, without even evidence that someone else is in the room, but Bucky is still screaming and thrashing and Steve realizes quickly that no one is attacking them.

Not on this plane of existence, anyway.

Steve immediately focuses his attention on Bucky, who has rolled onto his back, puts his hands on his shoulders as he shakes him awake, calling his name, until Bucky’s eyes finally snap open--they’re wild and terrified, ragged, weary, and it’s only once they focus on Steve that recognition and then relief flood into them. Bucky’s arms reach for him and Steve accommodates him. He lays back down and holds Bucky as tightly as the man holds him, hands smoothing across his bare back. Steve can feel Bucky trembling as he comes down from the episode and he holds his friend closer.

This isn’t Bucky’s first nightmare. It’s unlikely that it will be his last.

Bucky’s dreams, like Steve’s sometimes are, are plagued with the terrified faces of people he’s killed, the vivid imagery of exploding skulls hit with a sniper’s bullet, of knives slashing open deep red wounds in people’s flesh. Bucky’s torments are so fresh in his mind, just a few months ago he was indiscriminately executing anyone he was told to, regardless of their crimes, and he’s told Steve that he sees faces going slack with broken necks and blood loss, that they haunt him in his sleep. Steve started taking Bucky to Sam’s veterans’ support group, and it’s helped, but... wounds as deep as these take time and effort to heal.

Bucky seems more shaken now than ever before. Steve can’t say why, but it doesn’t matter because he holds him close, peppering little kisses across his forehead and the top of his head as Bucky clings and slowly comes back to him.

Eventually, Bucky speaks up, his voice choked and exhausted, “Hydra found me. They... they wiped my memory again.”

Steve nods, doesn’t interrupt, just presses more kisses to Bucky’s skin.

“They made me forget you,” Bucky almost whispers as he presses his face to Steve’s chest.

And Steve feels his insides running ice cold and doesn’t need any more explanation. He understands perfectly why the nightmare seemed to affect Bucky even more than usual. Steve knows he doesn’t know everything that happened to Bucky when Hydra took him. He’s not stupid, though--he’s sure there was torture, pain, more than Steve could probably fathom, but he doesn’t press Bucky for the information if he’s not yet ready to share. Because of that, Steve doesn’t pretend to know what Bucky feels, doesn’t act like he understands when it’s only been a couple months and Bucky had told him so little... but he can understand this fear. He can understand the terror of losing someone so important yet again, he can understand the emptiness, the horror, the torment. He doesn’t want Bucky to ever have to go through it again.

“I’ve got you,” Steve assures him and kisses his head, squeezes his eyes shut as he holds Bucky tighter. “I’ve got you right here. I told you I’m not letting go again.”

Bucky nods, his fingers gripping lightly at Steve’s shirt, his face nuzzling against him, and Steve thinks he can feel little damp patches on the front of his tee shirt, but if Bucky would rather keep the tears hidden, then Steve can do the noble thing and not mention them. 

“I’ll never let them take you, Buck. Never,” he promises. He’ll die before he lets it happen. “You spent most of your life protecting me, and it’s my turn now, okay?”

Bucky gives another small nod, and together they fall silent, minus the softly ragged sound of Bucky’s labored breathing. They lay together, taking a long reprieve in each other’s warmth, taking their time to release the tension they’re holding each other with. It takes a while for either of them to calm down, for their breathing and their heartbeats to even out, for their tight embrace to soften into a comfortable, loving one, and for their tightly creased brows to release their worry; it’s at least an hour before either of them fall asleep again, wrapped up in each other’s arms.


End file.
